


Grief

by Bittah_Wizard



Category: Original Work
Genre: Family, Gen, Growing Old, Original Fiction, References to Depression, Short Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 04:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17359229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bittah_Wizard/pseuds/Bittah_Wizard
Summary: An old man sits alone in his house.





	Grief

 

He was sitting in his home lonely but not alone. The rickety wooden chair in which the old man sat creaked with the aches of a thousand sittings. The constant creaking battled with the howling of the winter winds outside, the crackling of the fire in the hearth, and the bustling of boxes being filled with belongings. The man, looking around the now sparse old farmhouse, began to recall times when the house seemed full.

There was the summer when he had brought home a new television for his wife. She had wandered out of the kitchen at the sound of the wheezing of his 1947 Chevy truck that always announced his arrival. He remembers lurching through the door with the heavy set and placing it in the sitting room. Lorraine had gasped in surprise and marveled at his gift. The kiss he had received for his troubles was worth the expense.

There was the day that he had brought home his baby girl. All of seven pounds she was, and he had sworn to his wife that there was nothing more terrifying that existed in the entire world. When he walked around the house with newly christened Charlotte, he began to tell her about the life she would have on the farm. Her tiny gaze was like looking directly at the sun—enough to bring forth tears. Staring into her guileless eyes, he had made a vow to give her everything.

There was the week when Charlotte and her little brother Sean Henry broke their mother’s best serving dish. The pair had been running around the house, squealing as only little children can, and Sean Henry had been knocked into the dish drying rack. The heavy white casserole pan that Lorraine had received as a family keepsake shattered on the gleaming wood floor. They had found the children and hour later trying to glue it back together.

These were times filled with laughter and mischief. Times when dozens of pictures still hung crookedly on the walls. Times when his wife would walk up behind him and drape her arms sweetly around his middle; a gesture that never failed to relax him. The snap of the fire brought the old man out of his reverie.

The memories that filled the rooms of this old house seemed to make it somehow emptier than it already was. These memories, like ghosts, haunted the house and its sole occupant. Lorraine, his wife of 53 years, whispered to him over the crackling of the fire. It doesn’t matter that she’s been dead since last spring—her voice lovingly haunts her old man. His two children, now grown and gone for many years, have only returned to the old house and the old man to fill empty boxes.

They took the crooked pictures off the walls. They took the television out of the living room. They took all of the casserole dishes off the shelves. Charlotte and Sean Henry took everything and packed it into boxes. They drug the boxes across the now dusty hardwood floors of their childhood home and they put them into a moving van.

They kept glancing at their father as he sat near the fire. They kept telling him that he couldn’t live alone anymore—it wasn’t safe, it wasn’t right, it wasn’t the old man’s fault that he was old. They kept insisting that they knew best and that there was a new place that he could call home. Many others already did.

So, here the man sits. He sits in his old, drafty house remembering times long past. Shiny brochures that advertise about _care_ and _finding a home away from home_ lay scattered on the floor.  It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t want to leave. It doesn’t matter that he wants to die in this house. It doesn’t matter that his children have taken it upon themselves to pack his life up in boxes. All that matters is that the memories that haunt this house continue to haunt him, because the old man can’t imagine living without them. He wants these darling ghosts to linger, to live on. The thought that he might have to leave them behind in this house that was once a home forces a tightness into his eyes. The old man begins to sob. Clutching angry fists to eyes, the man succumbs to his tears.

Through his broken hiccups the old man whispers, “I don’t want to go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, Critiques, & Kudos are all appreciated!


End file.
